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Mayergoyz’s Collaborative International Research Published in Physical Review Letters

Mayergoyz’s Collaborative International Research Published in Physical Review Letters

A paper co-authored by Alford L. Ward Professor Isaak Mayergoyz (ECE/UMIACS), Dr. Giorgio Bertotti of INRIM, and former post-doctoral researcher of Dr. Mayergoyz, Professor Serpico, will be published in the American Physical Society journal, Physical Review Letters (PRL). The paper is titled, “Probabilistic aspects of magnetization relaxation in single-domain nanomagnets."

A single-domain nonmagnet is a basic example of a system where relaxation from high to low energy is probabilistic in nature even when thermal fluctuations are neglected. The reason is the presence of multiple stable states combined with extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. It is demonstrated that for this system the probability of relaxing from high energies to one of the stable magnetization orientations can be tuned to whatever desired value between 0 and 1 by applying a small transverse magnetic field of appropriate amplitude. In particular, exact analytical predictions are derived for the conditions under which the probability of reaching one of the stable states becomes exactly 0 or 1. Under these conditions, magnetizations relaxation is totally insensitive to initial conditions and the final state can be predicted with certainty, a feature that could be exploited to devise novel magnetization switching strategies or novel methods for the measurement of the magnetization damping constant.

Today PRL is the world's foremost physics journal, providing rapid publication of short reports of significant fundamental research in all fields of physics. International in scope, the journal provides its diverse readership with weekly coverage of major advances in physics and cross disciplinary developments. PRL's topical sections are devoted to general physics (including statistical and quantum mechanics, quantum information, etc.), gravitation and astrophysics; elementary particles and fields; nuclear physics; atomic, molecular, and optical physics; nonlinear dynamics, fluid dynamics, classical optics; plasma and beam physics; condensed matter; and soft-matter, biological, and interdisciplinary physics. The journal has an impact factor of 7.370 (2011).